Yesterday versus today

What happened to communications over the past years since the advent of the computer and internet?

While the Internet was originally developed in 1969, the World Wide Web was shaped in the mid 1990s. Google was founded in 1998, and MySpace in 2003, Facebook in 2004, and YouTube in 2005.

Face to face talking is being replaced by the social media, email and all things related to typing instead of talking. The great emphasis on learning to talk with each other instead of at each other has been reversed. The current generation cannot be blamed for not knowing how to interact in face to face or even phone to phone situations. They are living in a society where those values are not promoted.

Generations born before the age of the internet become frustrated and angry over a lack of having give and take meaningful conversations. We are not robots; human interaction is a necessity for all of us.

The big concern today revolves around melding the communications of yesterday and of today to find a workable common ground. I ask questions because I don’t know the answers or the solutions. Learning from asking and answering questions is essential to quality interactions. Communication is all about learning from the influence of emotions, facts, data, perspectives, perceptions and non-verbal messages.

There is another layer to the complex process of communication revealed by experts in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Every human being communicates by three different styles. Many people are strong in two or all three styles. They are visual, auditory and kinesthetic (senses and feelings) communications.

How can we work together to provide a better system of talking with each other? Or will human interaction fall off the radar in the future? That is an even bigger concern. Will the need for a loving touch and caring talk reign supreme or will it fail?

Communications in homes and offices show there are changes all around us. Robo calls are so much easier to make by talking at someone than an actual human making the call in order to talk with a person. They are cost efficient and fairly easy to program. Produce a script and uniformity is achieved.

Customer service was a way for business owners to remember that without the customer, the business could not exist. Representatives were trained to communicate, answer questions, or find the answers then return the call, emphasize a caring attitude and to talk with the customer. Training was a given, a necessity, a desire and was arranged for frequently. The motto was “the customer is always right.” Working together to resolve issues was the keynote goal.
The flip has occurred, causing most people to be fed up with “customer no service.”

Complaint letters are plentiful; replies of cooperation are almost nonexistent. When contact is made, the premise blares that the company is the almighty provider. If the customer doesn’t like that arrangement, go somewhere else. Or, if an escalation department exists, the complaint goes up to the next level where representatives are trained to let the customer know the company rules. Yes, the company rules in big business, not the customer.

Small businesses, for the most part, have maintained an emphasis on communicating with the customers by showing they care. The owners have to deal with the conflict of interests after hiring a young person who does not understand, know about or care about, those old fashioned values. Who is to blame? Everyone and no one.

Group dynamics have changed dramatically from yesterday to today. The premise is the same. Those of us born before the internet, have a need for human interaction and eye to eye communications. Striving to build a social or educational group and improving one that is struggling, can be evidenced by the generational differences. Working together suffers when some members expect a reply to their questions and others just ignore them due to a lack of skills or caring to reply or who knows what. Not returning a phone call and not responding to an email becomes a source of irritation. It signals a lack of cooperation.

Patience is the ability to idle your motor
when you feel like stripping your gears.
Unknown author

There are more books published each year than ever in recorded history– over a million in the world and growing. I’m an author who has been writing more these past three years than ever before. As I find less people giving of themselves by talking, my growing desire to research and share my findings has given me insight into the stress caused by our communication changes. No need to talk, just push a button or type words.

Receiving a birthday card via email does not express the love in the same way as shopping for a card, sitting down to write a message in it and mailing it. Receiving all that preparation and attention cannot be compared to a functional ecard. Easier? Definitely yes easier to send an internet card!

I’m advocating keeping the wonderful new technology and
keeping the talking with each other, to merge the best of both worlds.